844 days, 20,256 hours, 1,215,360 minutes, or 72,921,600 seconds. That is the approximate duration of my world tour. I never wanted it to end and now, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it never has to. If you wish to go by country do so by clicking on one above. They are numbered in the order I visited them, more or less. If you enjoy reading about it even a tenth as much as I enjoyed living it then you will not have wasted your time. Grab a refreshing beverage, settle in a comfortable chair, and make a journey across the world, experiencing it as I did. Then get off your ass and check it out for yourself. You're not getting any younger.

Azerbaijan Facts (U.S. Department of State)

GeographyLocation:
South Caucasus; bordered by Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to
the east, Iran to the south, and Georgia and Armenia to the
west.Area: 33,774 sq. mi. (includes Nakhchivan and
Nagorno-Karabakh enclaves); slightly smaller than
Maine.Cities: Capital--Baku.Terrain:
Caucasus Mountains to the north, lowland in the central area through
which the Kura River flows.Climate: Dry, subtropical with hot
summers and mild winters; forests, meadows, and alpine tundra in the
mountains.

HISTORICAL
HIGHLIGHTSAzerbaijan
combines the heritage of two venerable civilizations--the Seljuk
Turks of the 11th century and the ancient Persians. Its name is
thought to be derived from the Persian phrase "Land of Fire,"
referring both to its petroleum deposits, known since ancient times,
and to its status as a former center of the Zoroastrian faith. The
Azerbaijani Republic borders the Iranian provinces of East and West
Azerbaijan, which are predominantly populated by ethnic Azeris.

Little
is known about Azerbaijan's history until its conquest and conversion
to Islam by the Arabs in 642 AD. Centuries of prosperity as a
province of the Muslim caliphate followed. After the decline of the
Arab Empire, Azerbaijan was ravaged during the Mongol invasions but
regained prosperity in the 13th-15th centuries under the Mongol
II-Khans, the native Shirvan Shahs, and under Persia's Safavid
Dynasty.

Due
to its location on the shore of the Caspian Sea and astride the trade
routes connecting Europe to Central Asia and the Near East,
Azerbaijan was fought over by Russia, Persia, and the Ottomans.
Finally, the Russians split Azerbaijan's territory with Persia in
1828 by the Treaty of Turkmenchay, establishing the present frontiers
and extinguishing the last native dynasties of local Azerbaijani
khans. The beginning of modern exploitation of the oil fields in the
1870s led to a period of unprecedented prosperity and growth in the
years before World War I.

Following
the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, an independent republic
was proclaimed in 1918 after an abortive attempt to establish a
Transcaucasian Republic with Armenia and Georgia. The first
democratic republic in the Muslim world, it gave women the right to
vote in 1919. Azerbaijan received de facto recognition by the Allies
as an independent nation in January 1920, an independence terminated
by the arrival of the Red Army in April. Incorporated into the
Transcaucasian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922,
Azerbaijan became a union republic of the U.S.S.R. (Soviet Union) in
1936. The late 1980s were characterized by increasing unrest,
eventually leading to a violent confrontation when Soviet troops
killed 190 nationalist demonstrators in Baku on January 19-20, 1990.
Azerbaijan declared its independence from the U.S.S.R. on August 30,
1991.

GOVERNMENT
AND POLITICAL CONDITIONSAlthough
the Government of Azerbaijan consists of three branches, Azerbaijan
has a strong presidential system in which the president dominates the
legislative and judicial branches. The executive branch is made up of
a president, his administration, a prime minister, and the cabinet of
ministers. The legislative branch consists of the 125-member
parliament (Milli Majlis). Members, all of whom are elected from
territorial districts, serve 5-year terms. The judicial branch,
headed by a Constitutional Court, is only nominally independent.

Azerbaijan
declared its independence from the former Soviet Union on August 30,
1991, with Ayaz Mutalibov, former First Secretary of the Azerbaijani
Communist Party, becoming the country's first President. Following a
March 1992 massacre of Azerbaijanis at Khojali in Nagorno-Karabakh (a
predominantly ethnic Armenian region within Azerbaijan), Mutalibov
resigned and the country experienced a period of political
instability. The old guard returned Mutalibov to power in May 1992,
but less than a week later his efforts to suspend a scheduled
presidential election and ban all political activity prompted the
opposition Popular Front Party (PFP) to organize a resistance
movement and take power. Among its reforms, the PFP dissolved the
predominantly Communist Supreme Soviet and transferred its functions
to the 50-member National Council.

Elections
in June 1992 resulted in the selection of PFP leader Abulfez Elchibey
as the country's second President. The PFP-dominated government,
however, proved incapable of either credibly prosecuting the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict or managing the economy, and many PFP
officials came to be perceived as corrupt and incompetent. Growing
discontent culminated in June 1993 in an armed insurrection in Ganja,
Azerbaijan's second-largest city. As the rebels advanced virtually
unopposed on Baku, President Elchibey fled to his native province,
the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. The National Council conferred
presidential powers upon its new Speaker, Heydar Aliyev, former First
Secretary of the Azerbaijani Communist Party (1969-81) and member of
the U.S.S.R. Politburo and U.S.S.R. Deputy Prime Minister (until
1987). Elchibey was formally deposed by a national referendum in
August 1993, and Aliyev was elected to a 5-year term as President in
October with only token opposition. Aliyev won re-election to another
5-year term in 1998, in an election marred by serious irregularities.
A presidential election that took place on October 15, 2003 resulted
in the election of Ilham Aliyev, the son of Heydar Aliyev. The
election did not meet international standards. Ilham Aliyev assumed
the office of president on October 31, 2003. Heydar Aliyev died
December 12, 2003.

Ilham
Aliyev won re-election on October 15, 2008, taking 88.7% of the vote
in an election boycotted by the major opposition parties. While the
presidential election marked progress toward meeting Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) commitments and other
international standards with regard to some technical aspects of
election administration, the election process failed to meet some
OSCE standards, according to the final report of the OSCE/Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) election monitoring
mission. In December 2008, the Azerbaijani parliament approved a
measure calling for the abolition of presidential term limits. After
limited public debate, the measure passed in a March 18, 2009
referendum on constitutional amendments. Observers noted serious
shortcomings in voting procedures, and in the counting and tabulation
process.

Azerbaijan's
first parliament was elected in 1995. The present 125-member
unicameral parliament was elected in November 2010 in an election
that did not meet a number of international standards. 70 elected
parliamentarians are from the President's New Azerbaijan Party, 10
are from various other political parties that largely support the
President, and 42 claim no party affiliation, but consistently vote
with the ruling party. Traditional opposition parties Musavat and the
Popular Front are not represented in parliament. The November 2010
parliamentary elections were marred by a deficient candidate
registration process, limits on freedom of assembly and expression, a
restrictive political environment, unbalanced media coverage of
candidates, and problems in vote counting and tabulation. Under the
1995 constitution, the speaker of parliament stands next in line to
the President. However, constitutional amendments approved in a
flawed process in August 2002 included a provision replacing the
speaker of parliament with the prime minister in the line of
succession to the presidency. The parliament remains a weak body with
little real influence that votes nearly unanimously on all the
executive government’s initiatives.

The
human rights situation in the country remains poor, especially with
respect to freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, the
administration of justice, and the respect of property rights. In
2011, several political protests calling for democratic reform and
the government's resignation were forcefully dispersed and 15
protesters were sentenced to 18 months to three years of
incarceration for their participation in such protests. Applications
to hold protests in Baku were repeatedly denied throughout the year.
Local NGOs have reported forced evictions on dubious eminent domain
grounds, inadequate compensation, and unclear property registration
regulations. Restrictions on the freedom of religion also remain a
problem. Corruption remains pervasive in all aspects of society.

Principal
Government OfficialsPresident--Ilham
AliyevPrime Minister--Artur RasizadeForeign Minister--Elmar
MammadyarovAmbassador to the U.S.--Elin SuleymanovAmbassador
to the UN--Agshin Mehdiyev

ECONOMYOver
the past few years, the Government of Azerbaijan has worked to
integrate the country into the global economic marketplace, attract
increased foreign investment, diversify its economy, and maintain
positive growth during the global financial crisis.

Wide-ranging
economic reforms implemented by Azerbaijan during the past five years
have resulted in notable progress to improve regulatory efficiency
and encourage domestic economic diversification, especially in the
areas of agriculture, tourism, and information and communications
technology. In particular, the substantial economic reforms
implemented in 2007 and 2008 led the World Bank to name Azerbaijan as
one of the top ten global reformers for 2009 in its annual Doing
Business report. Azerbaijan has enjoyed measurable success in
diversifying its economy outside of the energy sector, with the
non-oil portion of the economy growing by almost ten percent in 2011,
while energy sector growth was flat.

In the
past few years, the overall regulatory reform process has slowed in
comparison to 2007-2009. While many of the reforms adopted were
designed to facilitate Azerbaijan’s accession to the World Trade
Organization (WTO), as of March 2012, Azerbaijan still is not a WTO
member.

Azerbaijan
has a liberal exchange rate system and, in general, there are no
restrictions on converting or transferring funds associated with an
investment into freely usable currency at a legal market-clearing
rate. No systematic difficulties exist in obtaining foreign exchange.
The official currency reserves of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan,
previously the National Bank of Azerbaijan, increased from 6.4
billion USD at the end of 2010 to 10.48 billion USD at the beginning
of 2012. Reserves had decreased in 2009 primarily in response to the
global financial crisis, which facilitated a decline in hard-currency
reserves in Azerbaijan’s commercial banks, prompting the Central
Bank of Azerbaijan to expend reserves to maintain the convertibility
rate of the Azerbaijani Manat in direct support of the Azerbaijani
economy. The average annual inflation rate for 2011 was 8.1 percent
(EIU). In March 2011, the Central Bank increased its interest rate to
avoid inflation; however, in late 2011, the Central Bank urged
commercial banks to decrease their interest rates in order to
stimulate non-oil sector growth.

In
December 2011, Standard & Poor’s upgraded the sovereign credit
rating of Azerbaijan to BBB- investment grade and concluded that the
rating had a stable outlook. Fitch Ratings affirmed the long-term
sovereign rating of investment in foreign and domestic currency for
Azerbaijan at BBB- and upgraded the outlook for Azerbaijan from
stable to positive in September 2011. Fitch Ratings first assigned
Azerbaijan the BBB- rating in May 2010. Additionally, Moody’s
Investor Service upgraded the outlook on Azerbaijan’s sovereign
rating from stable to positive and confirmed the issuer rating for
government debt at Ba1 in March 2011.

The
State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) – with assets totaling 29.8 billion USD in
reserves at the end of 2011 – operates as a sovereign wealth fund
for Azerbaijan. It was established in 1999 and reports directly to
the President of Azerbaijan through its Executive Director. SOFAZ
manages all state revenue from oil and natural gas, and is charged
with preserving Azerbaijan’s economic stability, helping diversify
the economy, and preserving the nation’s wealth for future
generations.

Importantly,
the higher inflation also reflects customs restrictions that are in
place due to supply constraints that limit import competition and to
monopolies that continue to control many sectors of the economy. The
national currency, the Manat (AZN), is artificially stable and was
allowed to appreciate against the dollar by 6.1% in 2005, 5.4% in
2006, 3.4% in 2007, and 1.1% in 2008. By early 2009, one AZN was
worth $1.24, an exchange rate that has remained steady ever since,
increasing only slightly since late 2010.

The
2012 consolidated state budget sets spending at 17.1 billion AZN, an
increase of about 5% over 2011. The budget funds an ambitious program
of infrastructure investments, focusing on transportation and water
and irrigation. About three-quarters of the budget is funded by
transfers from SOFAZ and taxes on oil companies. This degree of
reliance on hydrocarbon revenues has led the IMF to express concerns
about the economy’s stability and vulnerability to inflationary
pressures. While a significant drop in oil prices would likely
require some curtailment of the government’s investment program, to
date, inflationary pressures have been manageable.

Azerbaijan
is considered one of the most important spots in the world for oil
exploration and development. Proven oil reserves in the Caspian
Basin, which Azerbaijan shares with Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,
and Iran, are comparable in size to North Sea reserves several
decades ago. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which opened in
May 2005, has a maximum capacity of one million barrels per day.
While oil and gas production in Azerbaijan has been steady for the
past few years, imminent large-scale investments in the oil and gas
sector (most notably, a $20 billion investment for the second stage
of the Shah Deniz gas project) are likely to cause energy production
to climb over the next decade. Negotiations are ongoing over
different gas pipeline options for transporting Caspian gas to
Southern Europe.

Despite
substantial progress in stabilizing the economy and reducing poverty
over the past few years, substantial medium-to-long term economic
challenges for Azerbaijan still remain, particularly with regards to
the implementation of institutional and systemic reforms that are
critical to strengthening the foundations for economic freedom.
Although Azerbaijan has continued to attract significant foreign
investment to further develop its energy sector throughout the past
decade, inefficient government bureaucracy, weak legal institutions,
requests for illicit payments for cross-border transactions, and
predatory behavior by politically connected monopolistic interests
continue to hinder investment outside of this sector and present
challenges for foreign investors.

Environmental
IssuesAzerbaijan faces serious environmental challenges. Soil
throughout the region was contaminated by DDT and toxic defoliants
used in cotton production during the Soviet era. Caspian petroleum
and petrochemicals industries also have contributed to present air
and water pollution problems. Several environmental organizations
exist in Azerbaijan, yet few funds have been allocated to begin the
necessary cleanup and prevention programs. Over-fishing by poachers
is threatening the survival of Caspian sturgeon stocks, the source of
most of the world's supply of caviar. The Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has listed as threatened all
sturgeon species, including all commercial Caspian varieties. CITES
imposed a ban on most Caspian caviar in January 2006, but lifted the
ban a year later in favor of quotas. A March 2010 CITES conference
labeled Caspian beluga sturgeon as 'critically endangered,' but as of
yet no changes have been made to current sturgeon fishing quotas.

DEFENSE
AND MILITARY ISSUESIn July 1992, Azerbaijan ratified the
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which
establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of conventional
military equipment and provides for the destruction of weaponry in
excess of those limits. Although Azerbaijan did not provide all data
required by the treaty on its conventional forces at that time, it
has accepted on-site inspections of forces on its territory.
Azerbaijan approved the CFE flank agreement in May 1997. It also has
acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear
weapons state. Azerbaijan participates in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization's (NATO) Partnership for Peace, and maintains a presence
of over 90 troops in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan also maintained a
peacekeeping deployment in Iraq until November 2008.

FOREIGN
RELATIONSAzerbaijan is a member of the United Nations, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), NATO's
Partnership for Peace, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership, the World
Health Organization, the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova) Organization for Democracy and Economic Development, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Council of
Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of the
Islamic Conference, the Nonaligned Movement, and the World Bank.
Azerbaijan is an observer at the Community of Democracies. In 2011,
Azerbaijan was elected to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent
member, representing the East Europe Group for the 2012-2013 term.

Nagorno-KarabakhThe
major domestic and international issue affecting Azerbaijan is the
dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian region
within Azerbaijan. The current conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh began
in 1988 when ethnic Armenian demonstrations against Azerbaijani rule
broke out in both Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and the
Nagorno-Karabakh Supreme Soviet voted to secede from Azerbaijan. In
1990, after violent episodes in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku, and Sumgait,
the Soviet Union's Government in Moscow declared a state of emergency
in Nagorno-Karabakh, sent troops to the region, and forcibly occupied
Baku. In April 1991, Azerbaijani militia and Soviet forces targeted
Armenian paramilitaries operating in Nagorno-Karabakh; Moscow also
deployed troops to Yerevan. Azerbaijan declared its independence from
the U.S.S.R. on August 30, 1991. In September 1991, Moscow declared
it would no longer support Azerbaijani military action in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian militants then stepped up the violence. In
October 1991, a referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh approved independence.

More
than 30,000 people were killed in the fighting from 1992 to 1994. In
May 1992, Armenian and Karabakhi forces seized Shusha (the historical
Azerbaijani-populated capital of Nagorno-Karabakh) and Lachin
(thereby linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia). By October 1993,
Armenian and Karabakhi forces controlled almost all of
Nagorno-Karabakh, Lachin, and large adjacent areas in southwestern
Azerbaijan. As Armenian and Karabakhi forces advanced, hundreds of
thousands of Azerbaijani refugees fled to other parts of Azerbaijan.
In 1993, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions calling for the
cessation of hostilities, unimpeded access for international
humanitarian relief efforts, and the eventual deployment of a
peacekeeping force in the region. The UN also called for immediate
withdrawal of all occupying forces from the occupied areas of
Azerbaijan. Fighting continued, however, until May 1994 when Russia
brokered a cease-fire.

Negotiations
to resolve the conflict peacefully have been ongoing since 1992 under
the aegis of the Minsk Group of the OSCE. The Minsk Group is
currently co-chaired by Russia, France, and the U.S. and has
representation from several European nations, Armenia, and
Azerbaijan. Despite the 1994 cease-fire, sporadic violations, sniper
fire, and landmine incidents continue to claim many lives each year.

Since
1997, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have presented a number of proposals
to serve as a framework for resolving the conflict. One side or the
other rejected each of those proposals, but negotiations have
continued at an intensified pace since 2004. In November 2007, on the
margins of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Madrid, the
ministerial-level representatives of the three Co-Chair countries
presented the sides with a proposal on the “Basic Principles for
the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.” In 2008,
Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsian
signed a declaration expressing their intent to seek a political
settlement to the conflict, to resume confidence-building measures,
and to intensify negotiations within the Minsk Group framework on the
basis of the Madrid proposal.

The Co-Chairs have continued their
intensive consultations with the sides to narrow differences on the
revised Basic Principles, including through two meetings between the
Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2011. In a joint statement
issued during the December 2011 OSCE Ministerial Council Meeting in
Vilnius, Foreign Ministers Mammadyarov and Nalbandian reaffirmed the
importance of reaching a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno- Karabakh
conflict based on the principles and norms of international law, the
United Nations Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and the previous
joint statements by the Presidents of the Minsk Group Co-Chair
countries. In a joint statement with Russian President Dmitri
Medvedev in Sochi, Russia in January 2012, Presidents Sargsian and
Aliyev expressed their readiness to accelerate reaching agreement on
the Basic Principles.

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